Zuiko Redding Interview

Zuiko Redding is a Soto Zen priest and the guiding teacher of Cedar Rapids Zen Center in Iowa. Redding grew up in Texas where she encountered Zen as a university student. She studied in Milwaukee with Tozen Akiyama and in Minneapolis with Dainin Katagiri. In 1992 she was ordained in Japan by Tsugen Narasaki. She remained to practice under his direction at Zuioji Monastery and its mountain training center, Shogoji. She received certification as a teacher in the Soto tradition from Rev. Narasaki in 1996 and returned to the US in 1997. She has done monastic practice at Hokyoji in southern Minnesota. I’d like to thank Zuiko for taking time to do this interview.

Transcript

SZ: What initially attracted you to Zen and when did you begin your practice?

ZR: My first attraction to Zen was through reading the Beats – Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Alan Ginsburg, Gary Snyder – in the early 60s. I really learned about it in 1963 when I read Alan Watts’The Way of Zen. A couple of friends and I learned to do zazen from a book and began sitting. I continued reading – D.T. Suzuki, Christmas Humphreys, Philip Kapleau and the like in the beginning – and sitting from that time. Sometimes I sat very little, sometimes a lot. However, I was always reading and trying to live the life I read about. In the mid 70s I began sitting with a group of three or four people in Blacksburg, Virginia who practiced with a Korean teacher in the DC area. In the late 70s I moved to Illinois where I began sitting periodically with a group in Chicago whose teacher was Kongo Langlois, a disciple of Soyu Matsuoka who had come to Chicago in 1949 and was active there throught the sixties. In 1981, I moved to Milwaukee where I began sitting with a group whose teacher was Dainin Katagiri, the teacher at Minnesota Zen Center in Minneapolis. In 1985, we invited Tozen Akiyama to come as the full-time teacher at Milwaukee at Katagiri’s suggestion. In 1988, I moved to Minneapolis to prepare for ordination with Katagiri and I practiced there until I left for Japan in 1991.

SZ: Before practicing in Japan with Tsugen Narasaki, who gave you priestly ordination, I see that you had practiced with Tozen Akiyama (now of the Anchorage Zen Community I think) and the late Dainin Katagiri. I wonder if you could tell us a bit about your training under these two and your memories of them?

ZR: My basic memory of Katagiri is of how he paid total attention to what was in front of him. He took care of each thing as if it were the most important thing in the world, whether it was throwing away some trash or talking to another person. He really listened and tried to give the best answer he knew how to give. He also encouraged each of us to stand up in our own space, following our own wisdom rather than depending on him for answers or affirmation. I would sometimes tell him exactly what I thought about some idea he had, only to turn and see him smiling broadly at me, glad that I wasn’t buying into his agenda.

I practiced with Tozen Akiyama for four years and it was his direction that gave me a solid, grounded practice. He is a very down-to-earth person and refuses to be called by titles or to be worshipped in any way. For him the basic practice is zazen – sitting still and letting go of thoughts. When we get up from the zafu, we take this practice of letting go of thoughts with us into our daily lives, recognizing thoughts and feelings for what they are and not letting them rule us. He has little inclination toward robes and ceremonies and was hoping that when he came to Milwaukee he would never have to do morning service again. We were very firm with him about doing it, so he consented to a very abbreviated version of it. He was the one who really helped me understand what being ordained meant when I began to think I might like to be ordained. For him, it means being the servant and foundation of the sangha and I have his view as a model for my own practice as a teacher.

SZ: At some point you went to Japan and spent a considerable amount of time there studying with your teacher Tsugen Narasaki at Zuioji Monastery and Shogoji, its mountain site. I believe Kyoki Roberts also trained at these facilities; I wonder if you were the only women practicing there? What was it like bridging cultural differences?

ZR: I went to Japan in December, 1991, to practice at Zuioji and I received novice ordination from Tsugen Narasaki, one of Katagiri’s close friends, in January, 1992. I did most of my practice at Zuioji’s branch on Kyushu, Shogoji, but I did spend a month or two each year at Zuioji. I received final ordination in July, 1996 and returned permanently to the U.S. in 1997.

For most of that time I was the only woman and the only Westerner there. Kyoki was there for a year during that time. I didn’t really think about the issue of being a foreigner and a woman much – I just tried to learn to fit in – we were all human beings together. In the beginning I knew little Japanese, so I was often clueless about what was going on. As I learned more and made friends I had fewer occasions of cluelessness. I think the Japanese I trained with felt much the same way – round-eyed or almond-eyed, we were all human beings doing our best together.

SZ: Is zazen a technique—a means to an end?

ZR: No. To sit and give up our thoughts is the Buddha’s realization. When we meet reality directly—without the veil of our thoughts, ideas and judgments between it and us—that is the Buddha’s wisdom. It is also nirvana – with no judgment there can be no suffering. This does not mean that our minds are totally clear of thoughts like a blank sheet of paper, but that we don’t hold onto our thoughts. To have no thought is to be not human. Having a goal – making zazen into a means – defeats this process. Rather than being open to reality, we turn away from reality towards our idea of our goal. Suffering happens when we have ideas and, when reality does not conform to our ideas we hold onto our ideas. Rather than letting go of our ideas and jumping into reality, we judge reality for being different from our thoughts and feel it’s inadequate and wrong. The uneasiness and discontent that comes from this is what’s called “suffering.”

SZ: Why does the Soto school traditionally sit facing a wall?

We face the wall to do away with distractions and to remind ourselves that we are watching our own practice, not the practice of others. Siddhartha Gautama sat under a tree and faced east – outward from the tree – because no one else was sitting with him. In the Theravadin tradition, each monk or nun usually sits in her or his own cell. Our practice is up to us and that we don’t compare it with others’ practice.

SZ: You are the guiding teacher of Cedar Rapids Zen Center in Cedar Rapid, Iowa. Could you tell us a bit about the Zen Center and what services you offers? How are relations with other religions in the area?

ZR: Our Center was founded in 2000 by a small group of practitioners and myself. Since I was trained in Japan, we follow the traditional Japanese Soto Zen ways of doing things. We have regular schedule of morning, noon and evening zazen – for the details, you can go to www.cedarrapidszencenter.org. On Sundays, we have zazen, a dharma talk and other activities in the morning. Once a month we have either a sesshin or an all-day sitting. In August, we co-sponsor Great Sky Sesshin with Milwaukee Zen Center at Hokyoji, a Zen practice center in southeastern Minnesota. This is a seven-day sesshin with several different teachers, and it’s aimed at providing an opportunity to do sesshin to people who may be practicing alone or in a group too small to hold sesshin. We also have a number of social activities so that practitioners’ family members who might not be practicing can have a chance to interact with the other sangha members.

I am a member of the Inter-Religious Council of Linn County and regularly participate in interfaith events in Cedar Rapids. After the flood in June, 2008, several of our members and I helped the members of the Mother Mosque of America clean the mud and ruined books out of their basement library.

About Sweeping Zen

Established in 2009 as a grassroots initiative, Sweeping Zen is a digital archive of information on Zen Buddhism. Featuring in-depth interviews, an extensive database of biographies, news, articles, podcasts, teacher blogs, events, directories and more, this site is dedicated to offering the public a range of views in the sphere of Zen Buddhist thought. We are also endeavoring to continue creating lineage charts for all Western Zen lines, doing our own small part in advancing historical documentation on this fabulous import of an ancient tradition. Come on in with a tea or coffee. You're always bound to find something new.

About Sweeping Zen

Established in 2009 as a grassroots initiative, Sweeping Zen is a digital archive of information on Zen Buddhism. Featuring in-depth interviews, an extensive database of biographies, news, articles, podcasts, teacher blogs, events, directories and more, this site is dedicated to offering the public a range of views in the sphere of Zen Buddhist thought. We are also endeavoring to continue creating lineage charts for all Western Zen lines, doing our own small part in advancing historical documentation on this fabulous import of an ancient tradition. Come on in with a tea or coffee. You're always bound to find something new.

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